The Fate of the World: The Lull Shattered

by Creedogmon

edited by Godeerc VanDrey

Category: Digimon

Genre: Fantasy, Action/Adventure

Rating: PG

Language: English

Summery: Phillip finds a new friend. The lull of safety is shattered for most of the DigiDestined.

A/N: Okay, this is moving right along. I hope you've been enjoying this so far.

Chapter 13: The Lull Shattered

At the moment, Phillip is concerned about something on the monitor screen. He's been using the terrain program to look for strange occurrences. A composition test of the water showed trace levels of an unknown substance. In reality, this is a profound concept, being able to analyze the earth's layers without any invasive tests, but Phillip, a fan of science fiction and a rather uninterested news watcher, thinks very little of it. Presently, he watches as the program plots the movement of the underground water, resulting in a rather large water table just beneath him, down some ten meters.

But Phillip's extra-sensitive hearing picks up on something else, not something on the computer screen. Something's moving in the grass. The sound is growing louder, closer. Phillip finds the sound very odd, though. It's definitely something moving through the grass, but it's… noisy. The footsteps are quick and erratic, not like those of a stalking animal, which are soft, slow, and rhythmic. Whatever it is, it's running—fleeing, in fact. Phillip noiselessly moves through the tall grass. There's a loud squawk and suddenly something jumps on him. He falls back, but more from fear, for the creature is a small penguin-like animal.

It squawks again. "Help me!" it cries in a terrified, high-pitched tone of voice. Phillip hears what the penguin is afraid of. He hears the pounding of hooves in the distance. The creature chasing the small digimon is large. Phillips looks forward. The grass is being parted by a large object moving the brush aside, and heading straight toward the two. "Don't worry," Phillip reassures the creature, placing it behind him. His crest glows as he stares into the distance. The sound galloping grows louder, nearer. The penguin tilts its head forward. Suddenly, an enormous brown creature leaps from the air, its hooves still moving. Phillip creates his defense aura, which the monster slams against, causing Phillip to be slid backwards in a prone position, taking the penguin with him in the concrete dome. He looks forward; it's Bullmon.

"Sorry 'bout that, Phillip," Bullmon says, before glowing and shrinking into Wormmon. The white ball of light flies backwards into the distance. "I thought he was an enemy. We heard him moving around in the grasslands.

Eric runs up from the wall of tall grasses. "Hey, Phillip. Bullmon, did you get him?"

"No," Phillip replies.

"You see it? It was huge!"

Phillip pushes the penguin out from behind him, which is shivering vehemently. It looks much like a normal penguin, though small for its shape, only its eyes are large and human-like; it has a red, furry stripe down its back; and it has three small digits extending from its flippers.

Eric looks at the terrified bird and looks to Wormmon, "Dude, you said it was a huge creature."

"Well, I didn't actually see it, but I saw some grass parting and… you can't be too careful," it continues, embarrassed.

Phillip leans down toward the creature, "What's your name, little guy?"

"Falkmon," it replies, which a high-pitched voice with a bit of squawk in it.

"Well, you can stay with us. There's terrible trouble brewing here."

"Yeah, I know. I can feel it." Phillip knows this all too well through his animal attunement. Falkmon continues, "This is my home, usually. Well, I actually reside in that mountain over there," it says, pointing a flipper, "but I know this territory pretty well, so I travel down here a lot, but boy, there's something wrong going on here."

Eric smiles, "You got that right! We've been invaded by this big black thing. We think he's trying to destroy the DigiWorld."

"Very reassuring, Eric, thank you."

"Just doing my job."

: : :

Jessica, Matt, Daniel, Delcomon, and the injured James find themselves above the water, suspended on an enormous whale.

"Thank you," a deep, slow voice says below them.

Jessica smiles uncomfortably, "Well, you're very welcome. What did we do?"

"The golden light has freed much of the ocean. We were overcome by a terrible evil force, but we have been saved!" This vibrating comment causes Jessica to tumble.

"Sorry about that," the whale remarks. "I'm Whamon. Can I do anything for you?

"Yeah," Matt says, "we're actually trying to reach the Cave of Destiny."

"Well, why didn't you say so earlier? Hold on!" Without giving them time to do so, Whamon rushes forward, causing all to fall forward, except for James, who has been crouching the whole time. Pulling the first aid kit from her pack, Jessica ties James a sling.

"We really need to get a splint on him," Matt comments.

"We don't have anything long and rigid enough to do so. We'll find something on shore." The trip to shore takes under thirty minutes. Jessica immediately begins first aid on James. "Somebody find me two long, straight poles,"

Matt shakes his head and mutters, "You insult me. Lay him down."

Jessica does so, laying James's injured arm to the ground. Matt holds his hands above the ground, and four perfectly straight poles sprout from the ground. He lays two on the ground on either side of James's arm and holds the other two in place near the sides of his arms. Several thin vines sprout from the ground and twist and turn around James's arms, holding the poles in place. Matt clenches his hands and the vines tighten around his arm. When James lifts his arms, grimacing a few vines jumps over his shoulder and around his torso, creating a decent splint and sling. "Thanks, Matt," James says, feeling the inelastic support.

He looks up, "Where are we?"

Whamon, who's been waiting in the water, replies, "The shore of Nexus on the Continent of Interface. The Cave of Destiny is just through that forest.

Jessica walks over onto the beach, "Thank you, Whamon. We really appreciate it. We're going to save the word."

"I trust you will, beautiful Sister. I have faith in you." With this, he submerges.

Daniel nods, "So now all we have to do is find the Cave of Destiny."

"You'll never make it, puny DigiDestined," calls a deep, roaring voice. Before the DigiDestined is a large, upright lion. His eyes are completely black. In his hand-like paw, he clutches a primitive sword, raised above his head, ready to strike his nearest target: James.

: : :

Christopher, sitting on the ground, his laptop on the ground in front of him, the screen showing the box with unreadable characters, the elusive password field highlighted. He taps his fingers together as he stares blankly at the screen. "Gotta open the door. Gotta open it." His eyes widen. He recalls the flashback of opening the DigiPort. "No," he whisper, "it can't be… I would have…" He grabs his digivice and holds it before the screen. A short string of digicharacters fills the first box and a string of ring-shaped characters fills the second box.

Immediately the screen changes and a new box appears, with a scrolling text area containing a list of words in digicode. He studies them closer. The first two characters in each word are the same. He clicks the first one and a smaller, familiar box comes up: another password field. He holds up his digivice to the screen and is surprised to be answered with an error message. He can't translate the character in the top, left-hand corner of the box, but its shade of red indicates to him that that character is the equivalent symbol for "Access Denied."

He tries again with an entry farther down on the list. Access denied. And again. The screen comes up; he holds up his digivice, sighing, but something different happens. A screen comes up with buttons with more illegible text. I have got to learn DigiCode, he thinks. He clicks one of the buttons and an image comes up. It's a 3D picture of the top half of his torso, shirtless. He notices the scrollbar to the left, and delicately taps the down arrow a few times before tapping the up arrow quickly, his eyes wide. He closes this window and clicks the next as he backs toward the wall, briefly taking a glance at the sleeping Diana.

The next button brings up similar 3D images of articles of clothing: a pair of blue jeans, a gray tee-shirt, socks, a watch, and the rest of the ensemble which he quickly realizes is the outfit he has on. He tries the next button. This time a semi-transparent 3D image of a long tube appears, through which red liquid flows. Several lines of DigiCode are scattered around, including a line of text that points to one of many small spheres in the flowing liquid. He touches the text and a popup screen appears, showing him a sticks-and-sphere diagram of a rather complex molecule. Several lines of text appear, and Christopher again starts to feel the frustration of not knowing the language.

He clicks the box away, but misses the close button and instead touches the top edge of the image. Another popup, this time the picture of the human cardiac system, appears, zooming in on the heart. The black dots, which are labeled with the same sequence of characters as the molecule flow through the atriums. The heart begins to beat faster. The picture zooms out and it shows the blood moving quickly through the veins and arteries. Just as it moves up toward the brain, it hits him: adrenaline.

He clicks the two popup windows away. He clicks the image and it comes back to life. Knowing the tube is a blood vessel, he watches as it shrinks as the image enlarges to show his entire body, which has changed to show the epidermal layer. He strategically places his mouse and sits back to watch. The skin disappears, showing the black-dotted blood flowing. An image of his crest appears to the left of the body, which is shown glowing. The black dots multiply and run quickly through the vessels. The crest disappears, but a box in the lower, right-hand corner appears, and the Caretaker's robes appear on the body once again. The background, which before was a yellowish void, turns toward an outdoor scene: a forest area beside a pond. He watches as the digital projection of him raises one arm and water droplets from the pond float up out of the body of water. The screen then zooms in toward his head, entering it, and showing his brain from behind, where a blood vessel quickly enlarges and constricts. The image zooms out, showing the heart beating very quickly. It zooms in again toward the brain, passing it and showing things through the projection's eyes, which is viewing slowly falling water droplets. One curves and starts to lunge forward, but the point of view changes slowly, tilting toward the left. The droplet no longer is coming straight toward the screen but to the right. The projection watches as the water bullet flies by, only inches from the vantage point.

: : :

Somewhat disturbed, I close the movie, leaving me back with the initial choice screen. I get the feeling I've broken into some huge cavern of secrets. I've always been one to enjoy huge epiphanies, but this has caused a pang in my chest because it's so… personal. For the moment, I feel like Justine, who also has knowledge whispered into her ear, but more so, I feel like Jessica, who visions are quite profound, if not the slightest bit painful.

I look at the highlighted entry: me. I count the others: eleven, just as I expected. Why did I privatize everything? The passwords are embedded in each individual digivice. I can't access them without the other digivices. Katmondu is lying on the ground, his digivice on his neck, but I don't want to disturb him. Diana's is still attached to her backpack, but I feel a pang of guilt for wanting to snatch her digivice. I almost laugh at the thought of the big right-to-privacy versus right-to-know controversy going on in the real world comes to mind. But I'm on the verge of something and I can't resist the temptation, but then…

: : :

C.J. has added two child sleeping bags onto his chair. He eats grapes out of a bowl and opens yet another Sam's Choice Cola. He grabs a remote from the table and starts flipping through the channel of an enormous big-screen TV with a satellite attached to the top. He reaches down a picks up a carton of ice cream, which he begins to eat.

His computer beeps again. He looks left toward the laptop sitting on a rolling chair. He reaches behind the chair and grabs a toy grabber-claw, which he uses to pull the chair closer as he continues to recline in the deck chair. He pushes a button on the laptop and rolls it away, though it doesn't go far because of all the wires attached. He takes an infrared keyboard and looks at the other big screen TV which he is using as his monitor.

Christopher has sent him an Instant Message: Can you hack?

No, he replies, feet get tangled

computers, comes up on the screen.

o… no

Another message appears: I think I figured out how our powers work. But I can only open them with that person's digivice. I'd like a back door.

C.J. rolls his eyes at Chris's predicament, Dude, you're locked out. Those are non-shared files. Even if you knew their passwords, you couldn't type them in. They're in DigiCode. C.J. takes a pensive look at the keyboard, filled with Roman characters. He could imagine how DigiCode must have thousands of characters.

C.J. stares at the screen, wanting to help Christopher. As if to find something, he scans the monitor up and down, right and left. His eyes fall to the Start button in bottom corner. He clicks it, hoping to explore the computer for ways to help. His mouse rolls onto the My Computer icon so he can peruse, but something else catches his eye: the "Log Off" command button.

He hurriedly goes back to instant message program. Chris, have you put in a login password?

A slight delay, then a reply appears, No, we all have our own computers. No need for it.

C.J. types: Does the term "public domain" mean anything to you?

Christopher replies with a series of question marks, then: The network!!! There is another pause, then: But that only allows me to access the files on the other computers. It doesn't give me access to their digivices.

Yeah, but everything had to use their digivices to get into the DigiWorld, right?

Are you telling me that you think I could get access to the data that the digivices threw into the computer. Yeah, we're networked, but how do I sort through it?

Check the files for randomly named folders. If it tried to translate DigiCode, the computer would have just done something with character values. The digivices loaded programs before they sent out their signature. I believe the only thing they were sending out when you held them to the monitors was their signature. Have a look-see.

There is a very long pause while C.J. stares at the screen, wondering if Chris has heard him. Then: a file named by characters I wouldn't know how to type. inside is twelve small text files, each named a long string of numbers, the first seven or so digits the same. catch my drift?

time recorded files, probably in millis

good luck

And the InstaChat window disappears on C.J.'s oversized TV.

: : :

A/N: Whew! All these storylines are exhausting! I'll try to cut down on that a little. Anyway, hold on. They're being posted as fast as I can write them.

(Sonriso) - In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the Herald screams tonight… Sorry. Just in the mood.